Drinking Water Supply Plagued

Date of Publishing: 2012-12-28 00:00:00.0

Public complains over the quality of drinking water supplied by HMWS&SB. Will the authorities wake up or continue to ignore the woes of the masses? There have been rising concerns over the quality of the drinking water supplied by HMWS&SB at Narayanaguda as locals allege that flaws and disorganisation rule the whole water supply system. "The water tank has not been cleaned up for over three years and the tankers which carry water have not been maintained well to avoid contamination of drinking water. Moreover the water supplied by HWWS&SB at Narayanaguda is not sufficient enough to serve the areas that fall under its ambit," said Shamsudeen M, a resident. Repeated complaints filed by the residents fall on deaf ears. Residents of Domulguda also complain that they have been receiving contaminated drinking water from the HMWS&SB pipes.

Unclean water tank As per the data available with Cityplus it was on 23rd May 2009 that HMWS&SB cleaned up the water tank last. Going by the words of A V Vishwanath, Water Researcher, "A water tank needs to be cleaned up and the quality of the water needs to be analyzed once in every six months."When Cityplus contacted Hari Shankar, Manager of Narayanaguda section he admitted the facts and said, "In the last meeting help up with the higher officials our General Manager Sai Nath K N has put forward the same issue and we discussed about it. But on the grounds of no complaints from the public regarding the quality of the water we kept that aside. I thank Cityplus for alerting us with the public complaints. We will take necessary measures to clean up the tank as soon as possible." He also said that cleaning is needed when silt accumulated at the bottom of the tank. "But here the water undergoes three steps of purification before it reaches the tank. So the chances of accumulating the silt are very less here."

Water tankers violates norms Water tankers in Narayanaguda which supply water are devoid of EPI coating inside the tank. EPI is a special Aluminum coat which remains non-corrosive. As per the BIS standards water tankers which supply drinking water should be EPI coated so as create a safety barrier between hazardous materials and the environment. It decreases the health, safety and environment risk posed by stored hazardous materials and waste.When Cityplus spoke to the driver of the water tanker, he said, "I don't know about EPI. But we use paints available in the market for making the inner portion of the tank clean," said Ram Krishnan, a driver. However on the other hand HMWS&SB officials denied it and said, "It is not correct. We employ the service of private vehicles for supplying water here. As per the instructions had given by us they coated EPI in their vehicles. If you show me any such vehicles carry drinking water devoid of EPI coating definitely will take action against them." However when Cityplus visited HMWS&SB Sub Station at Narayanaguda, it was found that none of the vehicles parked there are EPI coated.